The explicit adoption of low intensity conflict strategy by South Africa's security establishment appears to fall into two phases. The adoption and implementation of the military establishment's current strategic blueprint coincided with the entrenchment of the influence of the military establishment through the accession to power of P W Botha and General Magnus Malan. This blueprint is a direct application of the military theories of the French General Andrew Beaufre. Beaufre, who was a general in the Algerian civil war, argued in his book 'Introduction to Strategy' for a military approach that acknowledged the existence of an extended battlefield. In Beaufre's theory, the battlefield must be extended to encompass all aspects of a civil society, particularly social and ideological spheres, such as the radio and the classroom. According to Beaufre, the proper concern of the military should be extended to co-ordinating all aspects of a civil society.
The dissolution of the boundaries between military and civil society as Beaufre proposed has now passed into South African political lexicon - 'total strategy' in response to 'total war'. The clearest adoption of Beaufre's recommendations, and equally the clearest expression of the influence of the military establishment in South African politics is the elaborate co-ordinating security structure known as the Joint Management Security System. It should be mentioned that a young South African lieutenant, Magnus Malan, served as a military observer in Algeria in the very regiments under the command of General Beaufre. Beaufre's book has long been prescribed reading at the South African Military Academy.
In the mid-1980s, South African strategists appeared to be swinging towards the more practical theories of Colonel J. J. McCuen, who developed his theories of counter-insurgency warfare in Vietnam. McCuen's writing belongs to the genre known as low intensity conflict theory. This school of thought is now dominant amongst United States counter-insurgency theories, particularly over the 'Westmoreland strategy' applied in Vietnam. General Westmoreland's approach to counter-insurgency was to make maximum military use of technologically superior resources and firepower to smash a third world enemy. The Westmoreland school believed in 'asphalting Vietnam'.
...
In 1986 General Meiring, the former general of the South West Africa Territory Force, expressed his preference for McCuen's theories over the abstractions of Beaufre. They are more practical, more explicit on the particular 'hard war' steps such as the creation of counter-revolutionary groups, and 'soft war' (WHAM) steps including electrification of townships the military should undertake in its WHAM strategy.
In late 1986, McCuen's theory had been precised to a 75-page document entitled 'The Art of Counter-Revolutionary Warfare' and distributed throughout the Management Security System.
What is apparent in McCuen's theory, and in the speeches of its South African proponents, is that the creation of a political solution requires not a commitment to political bargaining, not even top-down reform, but a bottom-up reconstruction of political forces. The move from total strategy to (active) low intensity conflict is the subtle move from controlling dissent to reorganising politics. Phillips and Swilling date the shift as occurring in 1985/6, the same time that vigilantes emerged.
Originally Posted by JMA
Bookmarks